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Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams

Over time, there has been a high failure rate of information systems development (ISD) projects, although Agile development has brought recent improvements. Knowledge management is also known to be one of the critical factors to Agile and project success; however, there are some knowledge transfer s...

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Main Author: Takpuie , Deon
Other Authors: Tanner, Maureen
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Information Systems 2015
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access_status_str Open Access
author Takpuie , Deon
author2 Tanner, Maureen
author_browse Takpuie , Deon
Tanner, Maureen
author_facet Tanner, Maureen
Takpuie , Deon
author_sort Takpuie , Deon
collection Thesis
description Over time, there has been a high failure rate of information systems development (ISD) projects, although Agile development has brought recent improvements. Knowledge management is also known to be one of the critical factors to Agile and project success; however, there are some knowledge transfer studies in Agile development. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present a theoretical model examining what makes individuals successful at transferring knowledge in teams using Scrum, Agile’s most popular methodology. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted at two Scrum companies in Cape Town. Participants interviewed ranged from project managers and Scrum masters to software developers, business analyst and testers. The interviews were all transcribed, then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings produced new relationships between characteristics already well known to impact knowledge transfer as well as newly defined characteristics impacting knowledge transfer in Scrum teams: empathy and articulation skills of the source. The results have shown that the recipient should perceive the person wanting to transfer knowledge as having these characteristics to enable successful knowledge transfer: empathy, motivation, capability, credibility, articulate and ability to communicate enough. The contribution of this study to practice is a list of attributes for HR managers to help improve the knowledge transfer of Scrum team members. The contribution to Scrum research is a new theoretical model that suggests which characteristics a person needs to transfer knowledge successfully in Scrum teams, adapted from Joshi, Sarker and Sarker’s (2007) knowledge transfer model. This model can also be extended in the future by looking more deeply into the new relationships between constructs, such as how motivation together with capability of the source affect knowledge transfer in Scrum teams.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2015
publishDateRange 2015
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13322 Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams Takpuie , Deon Tanner, Maureen Information Technology Over time, there has been a high failure rate of information systems development (ISD) projects, although Agile development has brought recent improvements. Knowledge management is also known to be one of the critical factors to Agile and project success; however, there are some knowledge transfer studies in Agile development. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present a theoretical model examining what makes individuals successful at transferring knowledge in teams using Scrum, Agile’s most popular methodology. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted at two Scrum companies in Cape Town. Participants interviewed ranged from project managers and Scrum masters to software developers, business analyst and testers. The interviews were all transcribed, then analysed using thematic analysis. The findings produced new relationships between characteristics already well known to impact knowledge transfer as well as newly defined characteristics impacting knowledge transfer in Scrum teams: empathy and articulation skills of the source. The results have shown that the recipient should perceive the person wanting to transfer knowledge as having these characteristics to enable successful knowledge transfer: empathy, motivation, capability, credibility, articulate and ability to communicate enough. The contribution of this study to practice is a list of attributes for HR managers to help improve the knowledge transfer of Scrum team members. The contribution to Scrum research is a new theoretical model that suggests which characteristics a person needs to transfer knowledge successfully in Scrum teams, adapted from Joshi, Sarker and Sarker’s (2007) knowledge transfer model. This model can also be extended in the future by looking more deeply into the new relationships between constructs, such as how motivation together with capability of the source affect knowledge transfer in Scrum teams. 2015-07-03T08:01:20Z 2015-07-03T08:01:20Z 2014 Master Thesis Masters MCom http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13322 eng application/pdf Department of Information Systems Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Information Technology
Takpuie , Deon
Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
title_full Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
title_fullStr Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
title_full_unstemmed Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
title_short Factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within Scrum software development teams
title_sort factors impacting on tacit knowledge transfer within scrum software development teams
topic Information Technology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13322
work_keys_str_mv AT takpuiedeon factorsimpactingontacitknowledgetransferwithinscrumsoftwaredevelopmentteams